Explorer
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29 Messages
Is the MicroCell Service Down?
Around mid-morning on November 1, my MicroCell went offline and has not been able to connect since. Everything else on my network is behaving normally and I've had no interruption in my Internet service. So, I was wondering if someone might know if there's a problem with the service in general? Perhaps something weather-related? If not, is there a way I can verify that my device is ironies not malfunctioning?
Thanks!
Charlie
Budule
Teacher
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24 Messages
11 years ago
I think the best indicator of that is how long does it take after a "power cycle" before the GPS light is solid.......mine locks after about 1 minute, i would think anything longer than 5 minutes is "struggling" but probably ok.....longer than 10 i think is bad......mine too worked for a year with little problems, i think the updated had something to do with the GPS part of it somehow.....
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CharlieSchorner
Explorer
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29 Messages
11 years ago
GPS lock doesn't really seem to be a problem for me. I get to the flashing G3 light with everything else solid well within 3 minutes consistently, but I'm willing to try anything to help. I'm still convinced that AT&T has changed something, with the remote possibility that something may have changed with my ISP, although I'm confident that they've done an extremely thorough debug. My ISP has an open trouble ticket as do I, so there's not much else either of us can do at this point except wait and hope someone at AT&T is actually investigating.
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Budule
Teacher
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24 Messages
11 years ago
Hope you have better luck with your isp than i did, they wouldnt help me at all....said if i could view a web page then it was up and running fine as far as they were concerned.....i think i herd them laugh when i asked about "port forwarding"......there is a very helpful site on port forwarding though , i beleive they have all modems/routers listed and step by step instructions.......
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CharlieSchorner
Explorer
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29 Messages
11 years ago
My ISP is awesome! They've always been very helpful and supportive. In this case, my problem is not isolated. Quite a few people across the state, all connected to this ISP have had their MicroCells go down pretty much simultaneously. The ISP has worked with all of us to verify that our setups are correct, that they in fact have all of the appropriate ports open, etc. they have confirmed that traffic on the essential ports to and from AT&T's IP addresses dropped significantly and suddenly over a week and a half ago. There's a person who is working with an AT&T service rep to figure out what happened and trying to fix it. So far all evidence points to something on AT&T's end of the wire, but nothing has changed for the better. I've opened a trouble ticket with AT&T along with the one my ISP already has open. I hope that some of the other people affected do the same. Maybe we'll get a little service if enough of us complain.
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OttoPylot
ACE - Expert
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24.2K Messages
11 years ago
I posted a link to AT&Ts MicroCell Troubleshooting Guide which details port forwarding for some of the more common routers. I even appended my Word doc. on port forwarding for the Apple Extreme Base Station. Port forwarding is not really the responsibility of your ISP or even something they normally support. Some really good ISPs will help you though so it all depends on who your provider is. There are just too many variables for the MicroCell to point to any one fix. Unfortunately you just have to follow advice and guidance found here until you find what works for you. I think the major advantage of port forwarding properly implemented is after updates when the MicroCell is trying to connect and phone home.
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CharlieSchorner
Explorer
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29 Messages
11 years ago
As suddenly and mysteriously as the box stopped working two weeks ago, it has started working again. Some time overnight something somewhere other than my house changed and the MicroCell was online this morning. No word from AT&T or my ISP, but it's still early. We'll see how long it lasts.
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MC_ISP
Teacher
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10 Messages
11 years ago
I had pinged my AT&T tech contact late yesterday that there were still issues, and I'd noticed traffic on port 4500 from our customers to their MicroCell netblock had gone to near-0 again. Looks like it picked up again right around midnight. I also got a report from another customer this morning that their MicroCell had come up last night.
AT&T is obviously doing something on their end that's taking these devices down/bringing them back up completely independent of our network or our customer's port settings.
I'm a little curious about what was going on of course, but mostly I'm just crossing my fingers that they've fixed the issue for good.
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gambet1234
Teacher
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16 Messages
11 years ago
DeKalb, IL.
My microcell has been down for almost a week. I know it's not Comcast... my dad down the street has a microcell and his is working fine.
I know it's not the GPS. It's in a window and has always locked instantly. I have repeatedly confirmed a valid lock with tech support (except for that one lady who lied to me, told me it was GPS lock problem, and then hung up on me)
I've spent hours on the phone with ATT because of the last microcell I had which would always have 4 lights, but stopped connecting. I know my home network and the microcell troubleshooting like the back of my hand.
Just in case I HAD missed something I disconnected my network and ran JUST the microcell off of the modem. No change. 6 days of powercycling and troubleshooting. I've had it.
This has already cost me a shift at work which I could have picked up if I had had phone service. Over an hour after they tried to call I got a voicemail notification. I just got an email from my mom. She has been trying to call me for 3 days. I had to spend 30 minutes wandering my freezing back yard just to get cut off over and over again.
AT&T - FIX this or stop charging me for services which you are unable to provide. Quit sneaking behind your customers backs trying to fix it while at the same time claiming that everything is fine so you don't have to take responsibility for YOUR outages
[Edited to comply with Guidelines]
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CharlieSchorner
Explorer
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29 Messages
11 years ago
I feel your pain! Mysteriously, mine came online two nights ago. The next day an AT&T tech called me and asked if I was still having problems. I hadn't been home yet, so, as far as I knew it was still running. But when I got home it was down again. So, I called them back this morning. The tech said she could see that I had an "unstable" Internet connection (whatever that means) and I should try connecting the MicroCell directly to the modem. Now, I've tried this before and, for what ever reason, the MicroCell could never successfully get an IP address without conflicting with something else on the network, usually my router. But I went ahead and tried it once again, and, once again it didn't work. She indicated that, if I continue to have trouble, I should call them when I'm at home so we can do a little interactive debugging. Well, I'm not so sure I'm going to call back. All they ever do is tell me to connect it one or the other of the two possible methods or to power everything off then bring things back up in sequence. I've done these things enough already with no success. So, I'm going to have my ISP switch my modem into bridge mode so that I can try things like reserving IP addresses and port forwarding on my router. I really don't think that's going to fix the problem because no one has yet been able to identify the actual root cause of the problem. Several people all lost service simultaneously, overnight, without changing a thing, after the boxes had been operational for long periods of time. Something has happened out on the Internet, whether it's at AT&T's end of the wire wire somewhere else in between simply shouldn't be this difficult to track down.
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OttoPylot
ACE - Expert
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24.2K Messages
11 years ago
^^^^^ FWIW, it's been my experience that the modem/gateway needs to be "dumb" so that all of your networking needs are handled by the router. That way you have total control and the modem is just passing traffic. No NAT, firewall, nothing is handled by the modem/gateway. There are just too many combinations of modems and routers, and multiple ways that they can be configured, for the MicroCell to work flawlessly with them. All it takes is one slight change, usually on the AT&T side, and it gets fubared.
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